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Showing posts from May, 2014

NPR: Obsolete Occupations

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An interesting piece on NPR about obsolete occupations:  " As computers and automated systems increasingly take the jobs humans once held, entire professions are now extinct. Click through the gallery below to see examples of endangered professions, from milkman to telegrapher, and hear from people who once filled those oft-forgotten jobs." Article found here . The Milkman http://www.shorpy.com/node/9204 The Telegraph Operator http://scripophily.net/phofteop.html

Terrainkur Markers in Lviv

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Oval metal plates with the letter “T” mark trails that are intended to be used for therapeutic exercises involving graduated hiking and climbing. The “T” stands for “terrainkur,” which is German for “terrain cure,” and in Ukrainian it is called “ тренекур .” This type of exercise was developed in 1885 by the German physician M. J. Oertel. There are still several terrain cure signs in Lviv. They date to the prewar period. They have long been forgotten. Some are very easy to miss  –  this one is on the building of the Lesya Ukrayinka Theater In Ivan Franko Park there are a few posts with the “T” signs. Sztuka Cafe found a clever purpose for this marker  –  it now marks the cafe's toilet :)

3 Drukarska Street: Ghost Signs, Fruit Liqueurs, Postal Pies

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The building at 3 Drukarska Street was built c. 1543, and was owned by Stanislaw Schtansl Scholtz. The building later become known as “Under the Mother of God” because of a statue of the Virgin Mary on the façade. In 1858 the building housed the St. Sophia Association of the Blind. Goods that arrived to Lviv were kept in stored in the courtyard of the building. At the end of the nineteenth century the building was demolished because it had fallen in disrepair. Interestingly, the picture of the original building shows nineteenth-century ghost signs.  Judging from the signs, there was a warehouse for paper (sklad papieru) and in the building to the right paraffin (kerosene) oil (nafta niezapalna) w as sold . 1543-1898 *** The new building, which was built in 1898, was designed by the architect Jan Lewiński. The façade also had a sculpture of the Mother of God. Starting in 1900 it housed Jan Muszyński’s vodka and liqueur factory (founded in 1894). His factory specialized in